Lawsuit of the Day: Elder Gods vs Microsoft

Welcome Squid Overlords!This was apparently filed over ten years ago, but you know how long these things take. The lawyers for the big guys always try to drag out lawsuits to bankrupt the little guy. Microsoft, the little guys. Wrap your head around that if you can.

And, no doubt, the Big Guys have tried and tried to drag it out and will continue to do so until Microsoft, crushed by the opposition's relentless attack, capitulates. The plaintiffs in this case have an additional advantage:

They are immortal.

To:  Microsoft Lawyers, Inc. 
From:  Azathoth, Nyarlathotep and Hastur, Elder Attorneys.

Sirs:

Our agents among the mortal herd have brought to Our attention your recent product entitled Windows '95.  Therefore We now give you statutory notice of intent of proceedings to be taken against Microsoft by the Many-Angled Ones.

With this suit We will show that Windows '95, and to a lesser extent all of the Microsoft range of products, infringe upon the recognised "look-and-feel" of the Elder Gods, for the following reasons:

o Windows '95 is a crawling abomination from the darkest pits of Hell;

o No man can be in it's presence for too long without being driven into gibbering insanity;

o A cult who worship it exist in secret amongst the mortal herd;

o Those who associate with it for too long develop common physical characteristics, to wit:  pale, clammy skin, bulging eyes, generally unkempt physical appearance, tendency towards nocturnal living, change in diet to that which normal men do not eat (in your case tacos, burgers and Jolt Coke; in Ours, human flesh, Fungi of Yuggoth and the blood of Alien Gods);

o Mysterious tomes that purport to explain this phenomenon are reputed to exist; they are bound in an unnatural substance and only available
at a terrible cost to the user.

o The Microsoft range of products seek to utterly dominate the world, and force all who dwell there to live in eternal damnation.

As you can see, Our case is very strong, especially when you consider that most judges prefer not to have chittering things with tentacles for faces scoop out their brains and eat them.

We hope that you will consider these points carefully and settle out of court, since it is not Our intention to have your senior partners spend
the rest of their mercifully short lives under heavy sedation in a maximum security psychiatric hospital.  After all, it was the Lords of the Outer Planes who gave humanity lawyers in the first place.

Respectfully yours,

pp.  J.  Arthur Hastur, LL.B., B.C.L, B.D


From: surfbaud at NO-SPAM dot waverider dot co dot uk (Dave Hemming)
This is original from me. It was originally an answer I wrote for the Internet Oracle – I've reworked it as a standalone.

for all the little bloggers everywhere

Intimidation

The State of the Blogosphere (IP) Address

Okay, it's a cheap pun. But I'm not afraid to own it.

Bloggers in Context

David Sifry, Mr. Technoratus, has posted an analysis of the state of the Blogosphere. And there's more to come, apparently.

It looks like people who start blogs are more likely to keep them going than they were a few years ago, possibly a function of the lower barrier to entry. With automatic tools to do most of our formatting, we really don't need to know HTML THANK THE GOOD LORD! Because until that little snag was overcome we had to be content with very limited templates, or we had to go over to the dark side. And if you knew HTML, what in god's name were you doing with a dinky little blog anyway? You could have a website, man. It's like having a bicycle when you could have a jet-enabled Transformer. Blogs are for the civilians.

There are no shortage of techie bloggers, though. Does this mean I'm wrong? Oh, perish the thought, bitches. It means that even techies get tired of having their whole posts go POOF cuz they forgot one single "/" or something. They are able to recognize something damn useful just as quick as anybody else, and they jumped on it. As previously posted on this blog (I'll find the link when I'm less lazy) technical blogging, while still dominant, is in decline. Again, this is a barrier to entry thing; before, only techies and those willing to put up with a great deal of crap and/or learn a completely new and artificial language could blog with any degree of proficiency. Now, anybody who can type (and many people who can merely type, rather than spell or think) can blog. So the techies are being diluted. As well, at a certain point you don't neccessarily want to pontificate, you want to communicate; the livejournalers go to chat, the techies go to IM. And, increasingly, to meatspace.

Imagine that: Facetime! It's the new hotness.

In summary:

  • Technorati now tracks over 35.3 Million blogs
  • The blogosphere is doubling in size every 6 months
  • It is now over 60 times bigger than it was 3 years ago
  • On average, a new weblog is created every second of every day
  • 19.4 million bloggers (55%) are still posting 3 months after their blogs are created
  • Technorati tracks about 1.2 Million new blog posts each day, about 50,000 per hour

Internet Identity Theft, Impersonation, and Stalking by Proxy

Internet Stalking. Lifelike shot, but where's the booze?A few of our longtime readers will recall the case of the New Zealand woman who impersonated Viggo Mortensen online for a couple of years. Actually, for all I know she's still doing it. But at the time I tried to make a few points about the illegality of posting information to the Internet which is designed to make people think you are someone else. Thanks to BoingBoing I've come across a nice article about all that and more here.

The data is sketchy; victims volunteered to fill out a questionnaire, and harasser data is, in most cases, provided by the harassed. But there are some insights. For example, increasing numbers of men appear to be applying for help, and overt threats of offline harm occurred in about a quarter of the cases last year.

In about half the cases, victim and perpetrator appear to be strangers. For the rest, it can be deeply, disturbingly personal. 

"With any new technology that comes along, you have the shadow of criminality that follows," Mr. Meloy said, although he added that the Internet, with all its distance and anonymity, provided a unique vehicle for the unleashing of hidden furies.

"It's a much more veiled, shielded, disinhibited way of communicating," Mr. Meloy said, "and much more raw in the expression of aggression."

the most dangerous hairstylist known to mankind

Now this is a hairdresser with attitude! Bruno interviews the Ramboriffic Jonathan Antin.

"I'm just a troubled, crazy fuckin' maniac…You motherfuckers in the Middle East, God help you if I ever come over there, cuz I'll take all you cocksuckers out!"